Train Goes Off Tracks, Into Homes

About 55 Of The 170 Passengers Were Injured When The 7-car Train Derailed. The Cause Of The Crash Was Not Known.

December 18, 1991|By Craig Quintana And Sean Somerville of The Sentinel Staff

PALATKA — Edward Overton was talking to a friend Tuesday morning on Amtrak's Silver Meteor when he heard the boom.

''Both my friend and I gripped the table,'' said Overton, who is moving to Winter Park from Nyack, N.Y. ''We were the only two who stayed stationary.''

Inside the railroad car, passengers panicked and scurried to help relatives and friends to safety.

Outside his window, Overton, 21, saw the remains of a house his car had plowed into. ''We wiped it out. It was nothing but dust.''

Overton was one of 170 passengers on the New York-to-Tampa train that derailed at 11:30 a.m., destroying two homes. No one appeared to be seriously injured in the wreck, officials said.

''We could have had a real disaster,'' said Palatka Police Chief Dan Thies. ''Everything went our way today.''

The Meteor's seven cars and engine were strewn across the intersection of the tracks and 12th Street in a zigzag. The train left the rails about a half mile north of its scheduled stop in Palatka, about 50 miles south of Jacksonville.

Among the passengers was Kitty James, the wife of U.S. Rep. Craig James, R-DeLand. She was not treated.

About 55 passengers were injured, said spokesmen at three North Florida hospitals.

Ten people were admitted for observation. Three of those were flown to Shands Hospital at the University of Florida in Gainesville and three others to University Hospital in Jacksonville. The other four were taken to Putnam Community Hospital.

The cause of the accident was not readily determined.

Investigators from Amtrak, CSX Transportation - which owns the rails - and the National Transportation and Safety Board were checking the wreckage late Tuesday.

People who live along the tracks said the train appeared to be going faster than normal and they heard the sound of hard braking.

The train's ''black box'' data recorders, which monitor the speed, brakes and instruments, were removed from the wreckage, said Lynn Johnson Jr., CSX spokesman.

Minutes before the train came crashing through her home, Doretha Dean, 23, left her home to return a jacket to a friend.

''I wasn't going to do it (leave), I was going to sit down,'' she said.

Her four children were out.

''It sounded like it was a bomb or something,'' said Gloria Gibbs, who lives next to Dean, about 50 feet from the tracks.

Clifford Hunter, 51, whose house also was hit, rushed home from his job at a meat-packing plant to inspect the damage.

''It's just demolished inside,'' he said. ''Everything is broken on the floor. The only thing that's not upset is the clothes.''

Thies said the accident could have been worse but a natural gas main in one of the houses was shut off. A gasoline and diesel fuel ''tank farm'' sits about 150 feet away from the crossing.

Buses took more than 100 passengers to their destinations, including DeLand, Sanford, Winter Park, Orlando and Tampa.

Passengers arrived in Orlando about five hours after the derailment, some of them bruised.

Todd Sullivan, 23, Boston, joked when he got off the bus that he didn't know if he was still shaking from the derailment or the thought of getting married in Orlando on Saturday.